Neonatal nurses could be laid off at Mid Yorkshire Hospitals Trust

Don Mort

Nurses could be facing redundancy in a restructure of neonatal units at Pinderfields and Dewsbury hospitals.

Cash-strapped Mid Yorkshire Hospitals Trust plans to reduce the number of nursing jobs in the two units from around 60 to 50, a consultation document shows.

The number of neonatal cots would also reduce from 12 to 8 at Dewsbury under proposed changes to the service.

The document says the proposals “will create a pool of staff where redundancy is a definite possibility” if they go ahead.

Affected staff at Mid Yorkshire, which has a financial deficit of around £20m, received letters on Saturday advising them of the restructure.

A 45-day consultation on the proposals started today.

The consultation document said the opening of a seven-day neonatal outreach service in January would enable the reduction of beds at Dewsbury.

The document said: “The trust is very clear that its purpose and remit is to deliver high quality patients services for the local community: services that are safe, meet defined quality standards and which are affordable.

“Maintaining the balance between all of these dimensions provides the trust with a significant challenge.”

Mid Yorkshire is also planning a “clinical services strategy” which would centralise parts of A&E, maternity and neonatal services at Pinderfields Hospital.

A public consultation closed on Friday on those proposals, which would see Dewsbury lose its consultant-led maternity department, with more births transferred to Pinderfields.

The consultation document said changes to neonatal services at Mid Yorkshire would “improve efficiency and reduce cost through the reduction of staff.”